Last week I bought a old service station. Built in the early 1950's. The building had been used for a car lot until last year.
Inside the building I have a Bend Pak HD-12 lift ( works great but a little slow ) The other lift is a inground hydraulic lift.
I ran the lift up and now it wont come down? I check the air lines and they are O.K , there dosent appear to any oil leaks that I can see.
The lift has a single air valve handle and a one hydraulic handle. Push the air valve handle one way to release the air then pull the hydraulic handle to lower the lift.
Im going to check the oil level in the tank tomorrow after I purge all the air out of the lines. How full should this tank be?? half? 3/4 ?
Any ideas would be appreciated..Thanks

If it has guide, sometimes they were removed, if they were you would be able to spin the lift platform 360 degrees. If they are still there and are round see if you can shake them. Sometimes they get stuck. If they are gear type. Flip the access lid open and look for rust and junk caught in the track gears. I use to use a shop vac to suck the junk out. Sand would build up around the gears not letting it go down. Also if you ran it up with nothing on the platform most of them are a real bi&^% to get back down again. Takes weight to help it. As far as filling, I do not know never had to do that but have worked under many of the old style.

Yes, thats what I did..ran it up without any weight on it.
The guide pole is still in the alignment tube. I pecked on it with a hammer and nothing. I weigh 210 lbs. and I actually did three pull ups on one of the swing out attachments on the platform and it wouldnt budge.
I thought by purging the air, the weight of the platform on the jack cylinder would have been enough to get it to come down but it didnt.

On ours, the tank was about half full when the hoist was down. The air pressure is what actually does the work so it has to have enough reserve to not lose much pressure as the oil level falls when the hoist goes up.
I did the same thing with mine . Put it up with no load. Mine was a dual post but works the same. I welded an eye to the lower frame and pulled it down with a comealong. After it had been in use again for a while it got to where it would come downby itself albeit very slowly.

I feel your pain, been there done that. Lol one of the shops I worked in years ago had one that was real bad. We had a greenie washing down the bays. We told him not to run the hoist all the way up with nothing on it, but ohhhhhh nooooo, he did it anyways. He ran it up under full power. It took about six of us hanging on it to get it to come back down. Let me guess? The last sound you heard before it stopped going up was Thhhuuuunnnkkkkkkkkkkk lol . sorry for the laugh, I am sure that it is frustrating you, but I just cant help it, I so know that feeling.

About thirty years ago a few of us had a big VW repair shop here in Denver. It had six of the in ground hoists. The rams were hollow and we had to fill the inside up with dry sand or they wouldn't go down all the way.
Don't know if this info will help or not, but I'll throw it out anyway.

Drum roll.........Got the lift back down. When I got it down I put my truck on it and ran it up and down several times.Works great now!! with or without a load on it
Many thanks to all for the quick replies and tips..especially to my friend " carbob " who came over and helped a bunch.

Hi, I hope you fixed the lift. I was wondering, since you have one in use, do you know anything about these lifts. My dad has one and I am trying to find out the worth of it, and who might be interested in purchasing one.
Thanks

Hi, I hope you fixed the lift. I was wondering, since you have one in use, do you know anything about these lifts. My dad has one and I am trying to find out the worth of it, and who might be interested in purchasing one.
Thanks

The thread is from 2006, I don't know if those guys are here or not anymore.
Your post is pretty close to an ad, which is not allowed on the forum, but we do have a free classified section.

Oh, I am sorry. I am not trying to sell it on here. I am trying to find out if it is worth anything; that is all. I will rephrase my add asap.

You had said in your post that you would like to find out it's value, and if anyone was interested in buying one. That could be taken as a ad.

I see you had another thread with almost the same wording. "One more time" I believe it was told you the same.

We just don't want you to start out on the wrong foot, have a post removed, and quit the forum before you get started. that's why Jon will post the rules, and why you should read them, before you start. makes it easy on everyone.

I don't know anything about lifts, but have one in our home garage and had to install a new air compressor..Now the lift likes about 12 inches going all the way up.It worked fine before the motor burned out on compressor...any ideas??

will answer own question.. after reading the answers about the one that wouldn't come down, wondered about the oil in this one,we haven't checked it in forever.. what do you know.. low,below standards marked..added 1 1/2 qt.. tightened lid thing back up and gave it a try.. wow!! went on up it is supposed to do. Thank you so much for the info.

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